TSU AAUP Position Statement: COVID Vaccination (February 1, 2021)
With a new federal administration comes the promise of a coordinated national plan to address the health crisis that thus far has cost over 400,000 lives in the United States and counting. Such a plan affords all of us the reassurance of accelerated production and a fair and equitable distribution of the vaccine which will lead us out of the pandemic.
The logistics of such a plan, organized federally and carried out on state and local levels, are daunting: from the adequate manufacture and distribution the vaccine to the large numbers of health care professionals required to administer the shots. Governmental openness and clarity about the principles governing the tiered system of vaccine priority is admirable and generally persuasive: those most vulnerable, whether due to health status or probability of exposure, and those essential to the fundamental functions of our society, are afforded priority. Unquestionably, health care workers qualify on both counts. The elderly, in particular those housed in institutional settings where contagion has been known to spread readily, are also at the highest level (Phase 1A) of priority for vaccination. The rationale is clear, and the necessity obvious.
Only slightly lower in priority are K-12 faculty and staff, currently in Phase 1B-Tier 3, entitled “Critical Infrastructure.” Who could begrudge the people tasked with the education of our nation’s children this guarantee of safety? After all, they are essential to our children’s future success, and they are exposed consistently to an age group notable for asymptomatic harboring of the virus.
Higher Education faculty and staff, however, have not been included in this priority tier. The 1.5 million employees engaged in teaching nearly 20 million college and university students who are the nation’s next generation of innovators, professionals, and teachers are surely as essential as K-12 faculty and staff to the country’s future. Furthermore, these employees are even more likely to be exposed to asymptomatic students than K-12 employees. A recent (January 2021) CDC analysis reports that 18-24-year-olds accounted for 57 percent of cases for those under 24, while 34 percent were attributable to the entirety of K-12 children. The study reasonably concludes that in-person higher education classes are likely to be more risky than in-person elementary schools. The faculty and staff in Higher Education are both as essential yet even more vulnerable than the K-12 employees currently listed at Phase 1B-Tier 3 for vaccination access. Despite this, Missouri’s Higher Education employees have been relegated to Phase 2, entitled “Equity and Economic Recovery.”
We, the faculty at Truman State University, take our responsibility to our students seriously, putting ourselves at risk with the in-person instruction in which student learning prospers. We are willing to bear that risk fairly on the basis of clear categories of vulnerability and essential services. At present, however, the Missouri State Tier system does not clearly reflect such fairness. A shared threat can bring people together—whether nations, communities, or institutions. For the sake of the students of today and productive citizens of tomorrow, we call upon Governor Parson to address this clear inequity by placing Higher Education faculty and staff in the same vaccination tier as K-12 teachers and employees.
Executive Council of the Truman State University (TSU) chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
Truman faculty demand vaccines, Index (February 25, 2021)